Customs Whistleblower Wants His Old Job Back

Service Retaliated Over Complaints, Agent Tells Judge

April 9, 1998|By NOREEN MARCUS Staff Writer

MIAMI — James Roxby rides herd on evidence for the U.S. Customs Service.

He says it's a dead-end clerical job, punishment for blowing the whistle on agents who used a Customs vessel for private parties until Hurricane Andrew totaled the 55-foot motor yacht in Monty Trainer's restaurant parking lot.

Customs says Roxby's allegations are not true, and evidence custodian is the only job he can do since he hurt his back during a drug operation in the Bahamas.

``It's really a sad situation, but not the fault of the agency in any way,'' said Customs spokesman Michael Sheehan.

On Wednesday the dispute got a hearing before Richard Vitaris, an administrative judge for the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

Vitaris must decide whether Customs, the agency that protects U.S. borders from drugs and smuggling, retaliated against Roxby for complaining about what he had reason to believe was fraud, waste and abuse.

``We don't have to decide whether the misconduct did or did not occur,'' Vitaris said during a break.

``Thank God we don't have to decide that.''

Roxby, 40, wants his old law enforcement job back, along with the benefits he lost with his reassignment to the evidence room.

And he wants to work not in Miami, alongside agents he complained about, but in Tallahassee.

Vitaris will not issue his ruling for at least a month.

However, he signaled his displeasure with one thing Customs did: holding up Roxby's disability application.

``This case is about why it was not processed like everybody else's would have been,'' Vitaris said.

Roxby has told his story to the media.

After television news carried a report on the boat charges in July 1993, Roxby was ``interrogated many times by [Customs') Internal Affairs about his disclosure'' to TV reporters, according to his former attorney, Peter Quinter.

Roxby's story, laid out in documents to the merit board, is that he was assigned to pose as captain of the yacht docked at Monty Trainer's Coconut Grove marina.

However, he never got to play his role because the yacht wasn't sent out on anti-drug missions. Roxby said the other agents used it to go fishing and partying with their girlfriends.

When Hurricane Andrew hit, the yacht was already damaged from being run aground on a sandbar. It lay disabled in the marina, preventing Roxby from moving it to a safe harbor, he said.

Like many other yachts at the marina, Customs' vessel wound up in Monty's parking lot.

Sometime later, Roxby said, he overheard Customs supervisors bragging the service got $175,000 from an insurance company for damage to the yacht.

Roxby said fictitious information was used to obtain the money.

Since the government is self-insured, it is not entitled to private insurance funds.

When, months later, Roxby approached then-Deputy Special Agent in Charge Dennis Fagan with his story, Fagan told him to shred the memo that laid it out, according to Roxby.